


Where's Proton?

by greg-powells-mustache (GregPowellsMustache)



Series: Captain Proton and the Danger Patrol! [5]
Category: Captain Proton (Star Trek) - Fandom, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Analogue Computers, Constance Is A Raging Lesbian, Gen, Space Husbands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:53:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25415731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GregPowellsMustache/pseuds/greg-powells-mustache
Summary: Captain Proton and the crew of the Firebrand return to Planet X - where Atomic City, and the Fortress of Doom, have been taken over by a band of pirates. When the pirates capture Captain Proton, Buster Kincaid, and Cadet Spark Jensen, it's up to Lieutenant Constance Goodheart to find and rescue them. But can she reach them all, spread across the labyrinths of the Fortress? And even if she finds Proton... can she save him from the wrath of his most brutal and unforgiving enemy?
Series: Captain Proton and the Danger Patrol! [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1465591
Comments: 7
Kudos: 4





	1. Proton.

The first thing I noticed as the shuttle touched down was that the sky was purple.

I’d heard this about Planet X, of course – a sky the color of the lilac bush my mom used to have in our front yard; the twin suns it orbited every twenty-eight hours. Four research stations, each the heart of a small city.

And here I was, outside of Station Zero, the first of the four, standing tall above Atomic City. Even from the shuttle, it had looked pretty big; up close, it was absolutely massive. Domed observatories stretched upward, keeping watch over what looked like at least three other buildings in the complex. I’d be working in one of them; I had no idea which one.

It was absolutely _beautiful,_ and I already hated it.

Still, I managed a smile as I spotted Dr. Altair. We’d only met a few times, but I’d always liked him – he was friends with my aunt; I’d helped him move stuff out of his office a couple of years ago when he was transferred out here, and then I’d happened to be around when he came back to Earth to visit for a while.

“Hi, Doc. I made it.”

“I didn’t doubt that you would.” He looked a bit tired – it _was_ before sunrise, but somehow I got the feeling that he would’ve been up anyway. “Welcome to Planet X. It’s a long way from home, but it grows on you after a while.”

“I’m kinda skeptical about that,” I admitted, “but I’ll take your word for it.”

“Well, I know it doesn’t look like much, but I think you’ll like the people you meet here. There aren’t many of us, but that means we’re all fairly close-knit. And _some_ of us were so excited to meet you that they woke up at _four in the morning.”_ Altair laughed as the toddler in question ducked behind him.”You haven’t met Dale yet, have you? Playing shy right now, but I shouldn’t be surprised if you have a new best friend in a few days. Now come on, let’s get you settled in. We have a lot of work to do.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” I said – and to my surprise, I meant it. After all, I’d heard about the things he was working on, and as crazy as _electronic brains_ sounded… Ever since I’d read that paper, I couldn’t get it out of my head. The idea of a _machine that could think…_

But I wasn’t going to get to do anything even remotely interesting while I was here. I was just here so that I was out of the way, where I (hopefully) wouldn’t get into any trouble. It was my last shot, and I was lucky that Aunt Nora had been willing to arrange it. I knew that well enough… even if I didn’t like it.

But I didn’t have to like it. I just had to keep my head down, do the work, and avoid screwing it up.

One final look over my shoulder at the shuttle as it lifted off, and I followed Altair down the path to one of the buildings. The whole complex looked a little eerie, lit in a cold pale purple as the suns started to poke above the horizon – long shadows stretched overhead. Shadows that felt… _heavy,_ as I passed through them, and began to spread, outward and upward, until the sky was cast in black. I lost my balance as I tried to step forward – but I never hit the ground. It was like I stayed stuck in the split-second just before, where either your reflexes kick in and you catch yourself, or you feel your stomach drop and try to mount some sort of defense.

_This isn’t right. I can’t remember, but… This can’t be right. This isn’t what’s supposed to happen…_

–And then the rest of my life came crashing back; every moment of fifteen years played out in a fraction of a second. It left my head spinning, disoriented… But as I started to come back to myself, I had the feeling that I wasn’t alone.

_::Be patient, Captain Proton. It will take time for your thoughts to become clear again.::_

…A Stygian.

_::Well… Close enough, I suppose.::_

There was no question about it. I could feel the Stygian there, the unmistakable presence of another mind, imposing itself on my own. I remembered the last time this had happened – clear as day, now. So close to where I’d just been standing, in the Station – three of them. They’d only let me go because they didn’t have a use for me. It was the only reason I’d escaped… and Altair hadn’t.

_This time, they might._

I could already feel the suspicion beginning to fade. Every muscle in my body tensed, trying to resist... but it didn’t make a difference.

_::There is a difference, Captain, between finding someone useful and being able to use them… although I’m sure those who came before me tried. Fortunately for us both, you were beyond their reach, even then.::_

“Why?” I demanded. “What kept _me_ safe? They took my friend, they _changed_ him, they made him into…”

I couldn’t finish the thought. I didn’t have to.

 _::What they did to your friend is unforgivable, even by our standards. There was nothing you could have done to help him; the damage was already done.::_ At this, a wave of something that was almost… _regret,_ followed by wry amusement. _::As for what protected you… Someday, you might be ready to hear the answer. But in the meantime, let’s focus on getting you out of your current situation.::_

“…What situation?” But then I remembered the pirates who’d taken over the Fortress of Doom; my friends, locked away somewhere inside, probably scared… and somewhere, just a little too far for my mind to reach, a needle in the back of my neck. But my recollection of it was fuzzy, the sort of thing you can’t ever be sure _really_ happened to you. _“Right…_ that. What did they even _do_ to me?”

_::Nothing you can’t recover from, with a bit of help.::_

The pressure on my mind increased then, as if to make a point. I could have sworn I felt something familiar in it. Something familiar about _him,_ calm and low and quiet – but with no room for argument.

Slowly, the instinct to fight it fell still.

I thought about that for a moment – a hundred questions spinning around my head. Too many to pin down, but I could start with one. “Who are you, anyway?”

_::Oh, I won’t bore you with the details, but you’re right to find me _familiar_ – we’ve crossed paths more than once, over your lifetime. Mostly in moments like these, within dreams… when you needed guidance to the right path.::_

The ground seemed to shake for a moment; somewhere in the distance, I heard the slow roll of thunder. It was a feeling I knew well – one I’d felt in dreams since I was a teenager. First before I’d stayed with Aunt Nora for the summer, and ended up enrolling in the Academy – and a few years later, right before she’d sent me to Planet X. At the decisions I didn’t want to make, the changes that I’d resisted…

I’d never known why I’d changed my mind so suddenly on them. I’d never even questioned it.

_::I have made no choices for you, Captain – I have only shown you the possibilities you otherwise would have ignored. I suppose you could say that I have a personal investment in certain aspects of your life.::_

“So what does that make you?” Somehow, I knew better than to ask him what those aspects _were._ “My guardian angel?”

 _::Something like that. I know much of your life, and see the paths it could take.::_ He paused. _::The path ahead of you now isn’t an easy one. But you are well-prepared.::_

“I don’t feel well-prepared,” I whispered.

 _::I think you’ll surprise yourself.::_ If we had been standing face to face, he might have smiled. _::And besides, you aren’t without allies.::_

And then he was gone.

Lightning struck overhead, illuminating the void. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was _searching for something_ – and then it found me. My soul stood on end, light and pain and _power_ burning away all traces of thought, of impulse, of fear.

“…Don’t tell me you’ve gotten _lost_ in here.” It was the voice of a razor, coming from everywhere and nowhere, cutting deeper than I ever thought possible. “You’re losing your edge, Proton. I’m disappointed.”

An iron grip closed around my wrist – and before I could protest, I was pulled forward, into a harsh light. Who I found waiting for me took me _entirely_ by surprise… although in hindsight, it really shouldn’t have.

 _No. This is just a dream._ I was trying _desperately_ to hold back the storm, all tangled doubts and slow, creeping fear. But I drew up all the nerve I had left in me – which, admittedly, wasn’t much – and looked into the eyes of my worst nightmare.

“This isn’t a dream, I’m afraid. It’s something _far_ more unpleasant.” And Dr. Chaotica smiled, an edge of bitterness in his voice that I’d never heard before… at least, not from _him._ “And if you’re going to have any hope of leaving here alive, you’ll need my help.”


	2. Constance.

**FROM THE PERSONAL LOGS OF LIEUTENANT CONSTANCE GOODHEART.**

**DAY 23.**

**[BEGIN RECORDING]**

Altair was wrong about the calculating machines. It wasn’t the relays. Juniper checked – and they’re fine. So we still have _no_ idea what’s going on with them.

It’s been _hours._ All three of us are just about ready to snap. We’re all tired, we all just want it to be done, and we’ve only got a couple of hours before the pirates start their patrols.

It doesn’t really matter. We need these machines running to calculate our Jump on the way home, but if we have to, we can stop on Ixor VII and finish fixing it there. That’s what Juniper suggested, and… maybe xe’s right. The only other thing they do is the autopilot – and every single one of us is capable of flying this ship. It isn’t that big of a deal, in the long run. But it shouldn’t be this hard, and I think that’s what bothers me about it.

I’d be up there right now, if it was up to me. But Altair wasn’t taking no for an answer. Confined to quarters on my own damn mission.

He has a point, I guess. I’m stressed and tired and frustrated, and I’m probably not doing my best work right now. But that shouldn’t change anything. All the ways these things have gone haywire over the last eight years, every time I had to race one of them to solve a problem… it didn’t matter how I was feeling, how tired or scared I was. I did it anyway; I _always_ figured it out. I’ve taken every module apart and rewired them from scratch _how_ many times over the years? So why the hell can’t I see the problem?

[SNIFFLE, SIGH]

Great.

I wonder if I can get away with going back over there after fifteen minutes. Something tells me that’s not gonna fly. He’s just gonna look at me and shake his head and make me come back down here. Probably best not to risk it – from what Cap’s told me, that was definitely his _dad voice._ And I used to think _Proton_ was the most obstinate, single-minded guy this half of the Galaxy.

Must be where he learned it – I recognized the look Altair was giving me, knew he wasn't budging. Right down to the _raised eyebrow of quiet disapproval._

But if it had been Cap telling me to take a break, I wouldn’t feel like this.

He’s never mentioned it, but I think Altair knows that it took me a bit to warm up to him – and that I feel terrible about it, even if he doesn’t really know _why._ None of this is his fault. As far as I’m concerned, he and Chaotica are completely separate people – and I like Altair a hell of a lot more.

Maybe that’s why I feel like this. Because in a way, he taught me everything I know about doing my job. And he’s _brilliant_ – but so far, I think I’ve been doing a decent job of keeping up… Well, until today. And I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve disappointed him.

I didn’t realize how much that would hurt.

**[END RECORDING]**

When I finally went back down to the engineering deck, Juniper was sitting on top of one of the calculating machines, looking over a diagram. _::Where were you?::_

I didn’t know what to say – but luckily, I didn’t have to.

“Checking things over on the bridge,” Altair answered. “How does everything look?”

“…Everything’s fine. All systems normal – well, except this one. Any progress?”

_::We’ve ruled out the relays and the accumulators, but that’s about it. We were about to start tracing the signal path, figure out exactly where it’s breaking down.::_

“Okay, so where do we start?” I looked over at Altair and did my best to sound cheerful – but I still felt shaky, and twenty minutes away from the calculating machines hadn’t done much to clear my head. “What do you think, Doc? You’re the expert.”

“Not the only one.” He offered me a half-smile, completely understanding – and somehow, that made it even _more_ infuriating. “Let’s start from the lowest level. When was the last time anyone re-calibrated the oscillators?”

Before we left Earth – Proton always checks over the internals on…" I trailed off, remembering how little time we’d had with the _Firebrand_ before takeoff. It had taken a week just to track her down – and almost that long to convince the PDF that we didn’t need a newer, standard ship. In the end, they’d let up when I told them that I thought we’d work more cohesively in our old environment, especially after a couple of years apart – and furthermore, that I was worried that Proton would have some trouble flying the newer ships.

We would’ve been fine. We could work well together on _any_ ship – and don’t tell him I said this, obviously, but… I’ve met a _lot_ of pilots, all over the Galaxy, and Cap’s the best of ’em. But I hate working on the PDF’s calculating machines. I hadn’t minded them at first. I mean, they were all I’d ever worked on. But after my first posting on the _Firebrand,_ they’d reassigned me for a bit, and I just couldn’t do it. In comparison, they were too cold and quiet and… lifeless. I haven’t felt comfortable around them since.

And at the moment, I’d needed as much comfort as I could get.

I shook my head – no time to get lost in thought, not right now – and pulled a hair tie out of my pocket. I’ve never been able to think as clearly with my hair down, and I needed something to do with my hands, anyway. “Sorry. Yeah, it might be a good idea to check the oscillators – Cap didn’t get a ton of time to do system checks, and he knows the details of the internals a hell of a lot better than I do. …But wait a second – we made it _here_ just fine…”

 _::You said they’re analogue oscillators, right?::_ Juniper hopped down from the top of the machine – over two meters, but xe made it look as easy as a single step. _::Maybe there was something to what Rae said about electromagnetic interference, after all.::_

“I hope not,” Altair chuckled. “I don’t want to have to check the copper casing on the ship. But in the meantime, we can fix it for now. Let me go get something, and then we’ll have a look.”

He returned not even a minute later with something that _almost_ looked like the keyboard on my card punch – but it only had eight keys, in a straight line, and a telephone cable on the end.

_::What’s that?::_

“This is the most overly-complicated way to program a calculating machine, and absolutely the bane of my existence. But I keep it around for situations like this – when nothing else works.” He plugged the keyboard into the input jack and set to work – I had _no_ idea what any of it meant at the time. And a few seconds later, a printout emerged. “Well, this isn’t right. There are four oscillators on this machine, and two of them are misaligned. We’ll have to check the others, too… but it only takes a few minutes to recalibrate each of them, luckily.”

_::So how do we do that? Open a panel and turn some knobs?::_

“If we had an oscilloscope onboard, yes – but I didn’t think about bringing one. So we’ll just have to do this one increment at a time. Each oscillator needs to be at 440 hertz – and right now, these two are _nowhere_ near that.”

That’s _well_ within hearing range; you tune pianos to that. And I’d done _that_ enough times – I’ve played piano since I was eight, and I’d insisted on learning to retune them myself when I was a kid. “Hey, Doc, I have an idea – get the panel open, and I’ll be right back.”

Altair raised an eyebrow at that, but he didn’t ask any questions.

I gave it a minute’s thought as I grabbed my headset from the console. At that point, I’d been a field mathematician for eight years, and although I was never formally trained for it, I’d been running the radios on this ship for just as long. As long as the dials weren’t too sensitive…

“So, what’s this idea of yours?” he asked – but then, he saw the headset, and smiled. “That’s clever. I should have thought of that.”

“Which two oscillators?”

“Second and third.”

“It might not be perfect,” I admitted, “but I should be able to get it close enough that it won’t take you as long to fix.”

 _::Well, anything that saves us time,::_ Juniper quipped. _::We can start on the next one over in the meantime – what do you need me to do, Doc?::_

“Read off the printouts as we go – one catch, though. It’s in binary.”

_::Oh, that’s fine. I can do that in my head.::_

I dialled the amplitude down on my headset and plugged it in, before sitting down in front of the open panel. Four dials, each with a small rocker switch underneath, which I assumed were the bypass switches. As I brought up the volume, I couldn’t help but shudder a little – there was _definitely_ something out of tune here.

_Time to get to work._

I switched off three of the oscillators and worked from there – adding in the second one and dialling up the frequency until the pitches matched, then repeating that with the third. When I added the fourth one, there was a single note, instead of the noise I’d heard before.

When I stood up, Juniper and Altair were still working on one of the other machines. “Hey, I can take over there and you guys can finish this one.”

_::Sure.::_

I got out of the way and let Altair work – and after a minute, the printer clattered to life.

 _::What’s our frequency tolerance?::_ Juniper asked. _::Ten hertz?::_

Altair nodded. “Give or take. Why?”

_::Because I dunno how, but uh… Con, you just got us there, by five.::_

They were both looking at me like I’d just done something impossible – and I didn’t particularly like it. “What’s that look for?”

“That was _brilliant,_ Constance,” Altair said quietly. “And don’t you _dare_ say something self-deprecating about it – I won’t allow it.”

“Alright, Doc, you win,” I laughed. “So, check the other machines and we’re off?”

“Not even. I’ll synchronize these oscillators to the other machines – it’ll run quite a bit slower, but it will work until we get to Ixor VII. We can fix the other two there. So now we’ll just have to re-wire them… since we’ve all but torn them apart.”

 _::I’ll stay and do it.::_ Juniper smiled. _::I get the feeling that I’d draw a lot of unwelcome attention.::_

“In this city? More than likely, unfortunately. I don’t remember much, but from what I _do…_ People may not exactly be biased in your favor.”

“I don’t like that idea,” I said. “We’re already split up enough as it is.”

 _::I’ll be fine. Besides, somebody’s gotta hold down the fort – it’s a bad idea to leave a ship like this unattended.::_ Juniper chuckled – or, whatever the telepathic equivalent is, anyway. _::If anybody comes near, I’ll just knock ’em out.::_

For a second, Altair looked like he was going to say something to that, but he thought better of it. “That settles it, then. –But be careful.”

_::Aw, Doc, are you worried about me? That’s so sweet. –Unnecessary, but sweet.::_

He rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath – back to being generally exasperated with everything. That’s pretty much the only way he knows how to be, really. Most people wouldn’t recognize him otherwise.

I guess I don’t have to tell you what we found, when we got to the apartment; Cap would’ve already told you about that. The empty rooms, the pocket radio in pieces, in the middle of the living room. Someone had kicked it, looked like. But that wasn’t really what told me that something was wrong.

“No sign of any of them. And Rae should have been back by now.” Altair’s voice had gone strangely flat, too quiet. “We have to go after them.”

“You’re right.” I thought about the rayguns hanging in the closet, and Cap’s jacket. He never goes anywhere without it – especially not into enemy territory. “But you’re not coming with me. We have _no idea_ what to expect in there, and I don’t want…”

"The hell I’m not. That’s _exactly_ why I don’t want you going in there alone. And besides… this means that the pirates have _Spark."_

“Yeah. But we’ll find them, I promise.” It wasn’t much reassurance, and I knew it. I couldn’t even imagine how afraid he must have been. “And Spark’s with Proton, remember? He won’t let anything happen to them.”

“I know. And there’s no one I’d trust more. _Especially_ not in the Fortress of Doom – he might know his way around there better than _I_ do. –But that’s the reason you’d rather have me sit this out, isn’t it?”

It was. Bringing him along had made sense, when we’d left Earth for Planet X – we were here to recover _his_ work… sort of. But we were expecting it to be a quick mission, just getting into what was left of the Fortress, finding what we needed, and leaving. The pirates made all of that really messy. If he went in there with me and we got caught… it wasn’t going to end up well. Not that I could tell him any of that.

“It doesn’t matter,” Altair said quietly. "Who cares whether they recognize us – I don’t think the pirates are inclined to kindness on our part anyway. But _Spark…"_

“That doesn’t make sense. Spark’s just a kid; it’s not like they’re a threat…”

“Aren’t they? Let’s just hope that the pirates agree with you – but if they know who Spark is, I doubt that will be the case. Not after what I did here.”

“…I don’t know what you mean.”

“Of course you do, Constance. The pirates took over this city in particular, and the Fortress of Doom. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the planet – and the neighbors – are in their sights.” His laugh was harsh and hollow, just as broken as the apartment we stood in. “The worst part is that I don’t know what would happen, if someone recognized Spark… Either an entire empire would rise to meet them, or they’d find nothing but dust.”

“Doc,” I said quietly, “how much of it are you starting to remember?”

“Enough to wish I didn’t. –But we have more important things to worry about right now. I know a way in that the pirates won’t have touched. Only two people have access to it – and the other person hasn’t been on this planet in nearly eighteen years. We can make a plan from there.”

“Yeah. Okay.” I pushed all of the questions, all of the doubts, into the back of my mind. He was right. We didn’t have time for this right now.

But we were going to have a lot to talk about, when all of this was over.


	3. Constance.

Getting out of Atomic City was the easy part… comparatively, anyway. The patrols were out by now, but we stayed out of sight – through hidden paths, clever timing, perfectly-angled shadows. It felt familiar… almost.

Last time I’d done this, the guards had been a _lot_ better-organized. Rae hadn’t been exaggerating, when she’d told us about the pirates. They went in haphazard groups of two or three, no uniforms, no discipline. The only reason I knew who they were was the way they held their rayguns. Up and out, making sure that anyone who happened to be watching knew that they were armed.

At least Chaotica’s soldiers had the decency to keep their weapons holstered, to give a warning.

“When this is over, what are we going to do?”

Altair’s question took me by surprise – it was the first time either of us had said more than a couple of words since we’d left the apartment. “Hmm?”

“We get everyone out, maybe we get the lab notes, if we’re lucky, and then what? Do we just leave, and ask the PDF to do something about it, even though we know they won’t?”

“Who says they won’t, Doc? They didn’t know what was going on over here. Maybe they’ll…”

“They’ve never cared about us. After the Stygians came, fifty people made it to Ixor VII, out of three thousand in the city. Most of them were children. I saw the records, when I got there, recognized nearly all of the names. The oldest of them was only twenty-six – a very bright young man… if a little impulsive.” Altair didn’t quite smile; it was something too angry for that. “And instead of sending an evacuation crew, the PDF made him responsible for the fate of an entire planet.”

My own memory of that young man was… complicated. He hadn’t exactly made a great first impression, and neither had I. Looking back, I’ve realized that neither of us were really at fault. I would’ve rather been anywhere else – fresh out of university, ready to take on the universe itself… or so I thought. I hadn’t been planning on being assigned to a little ship, going halfway across the Galaxy. And I’d made it clear on no uncertain terms.

“I don’t know what we’re gonna do,” I admitted.

“Then we’ll just have to figure it out as we go.” Altair pointed toward a small path, through a stretch of trees. “Just through here – it’s on this side, and not very far, but it’ll be up to you to get us there.”

“Well, I’ve done that plenty of times. And while evading better-trained guards.”

“From what we saw back there, I’d say it’s a fairly low bar.”

Neither of us said anything for a little while after that – not until we got through the trees, and found ourselves looking toward the Fortress of Doom. It’s surrounded by _nothing,_ just huge chunks of rock – and rubble, once you get close enough. It isn’t too different from standing on the surface of Earth’s moon. It’s just as empty, just as dangerous.

“I hate this place,” I muttered, more to myself (or maybe the universe) than to anyone else.

“It wasn’t always like this. There used to be a bit of forest here, between the city and Station Zero. Spark and their friends had a treehouse around here…” Altair trailed off, and I found myself wondering just what he saw, when he looked over this place.

I tried to imagine it, to see trees and paths and moss… but it seemed impossible. To me, it would never be anything more than a desolate wasteland under a purple sky, full of misery and destruction.

“…Wait.” Altair held up a hand, listening. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Exactly. We should be able to hear the generators from here.” Altair swore under his breath. "If we can’t get into that lab, we’ll have to find another way in. Let’s just hope they’re powering this side of the complex for _something."_

“Yeah, about that. How secure are we going to be in there, anyway? And what’s even _in_ there?”

“The only place more secure is the library. If we can get in there, no one else is getting in unless we allow it. –Here we are.”

The door in front of us was fairly inconspicuous, more like the _Firebrand’s_ hatch than the heavy double doors that guarded the primary entrance. But unlike the _Firebrand,_ this one didn’t seem to have a handle, or a lock, or… anything. But Altair reached over to where a handle _should_ have been, and the door just… swung open.

It wasn’t a lab, not the way I’d usually think of them. I’d say it’s more like a big study – with the most _gorgeous_ stained-glass window I’ve ever seen. I can still see the triangles of light reflecting off the table, the perfectly-angled pen sitting on top of a notebook. If it hadn’t been for the dust, I would’ve thought that whoever worked in there had just stepped out for a cup of coffee.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“This is where everything started, twenty-five years ago. That machine over there, that was the first of them – more than a calculating machine, but not quite a robot. We called it an electronic brain.”

And then I saw what he was talking about – it spanned an entire wall. Each of its modules was easily the size of one of the machines on the _Firebrand,_ hidden neatly behind wide metal panels. I spotted some accumulators, a few panels of indicator lights… and some things I didn’t recognize at all. It was massive, as imposing as any of the calculating machines scattered around the Fortress of Doom. Maybe just as fast, maybe just as complex. But it was silent, motionless, and completely devoid of life.

And as much as people tell me otherwise… they are alive.

Altair’s focus was fixed on something along the far wall – the neatness of the worktables, sparsely-populated bookshelves. There wasn’t much there but a few notebooks, a puzzle box, and a couple of picture frames. “…Now where would he have put it?”

He went over to the bookshelf and pulled down a notebook – _far_ too quickly for it to be anything but random, but after a minute of flipping through it, he nodded to himself. He handed it to me, open to a wiring diagram – and it took me a second to recognize the patterns. It was similar to how we connected our flight calculators to the ship databases, but a lot bigger… and a lot more complex. And yet, something felt _off_ about it…

“The surveillance system connects to the central database,” he told me. “There’s a maze program in here, somewhere toward the front, I think… It’s a map of the station. As long as I can get the interface running, we can connect those systems together and plot a way out of here.”

“You talk about it like you didn’t build it, Doc,” I chuckled.

“Well, it wasn’t just me. Anyone can wire a few circuits together. But making them come alive… that’s another matter entirely. Plenty of people said it was impossible – but _impossible_ was always what Corius did best. It was his project; I just tagged along. Thought it would only be for a few months, but… the universe had other plans.”

“Never thought you were the deterministic type.”

“I’m not. But even then, I knew that I was being given something more than I would ever deserve.” He looked over at the operator’s console – I recognized the expectation in his eyes, and the disappointment, when no one was there.

“Do you miss him?” I asked softly.

I knew the answer. He nodded anyway.

I glanced through the program quickly – the programming language, after all, was a familiar one, and I could pretty much figure out the way it coded each area of the Fortress… even if I wasn’t sure which was which, just yet. I thought about asking, for a second – but Altair was looking over the panels at the operator’s console, and I thought better of it. It’s too many for me to count, or even _process,_ but I didn’t doubt for a second that he knew every dial and switch on that thing. I’m _still_ a little envious, thinking about it now – sometimes, even just after a couple of weeks, I’ve gotta reorient myself on the engineering deck. And if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought that he’d just been working on the machine a few days before.

“Well, Corius… let’s see if I can still keep up with you.” There was a quiet tremor in his voice, desperate, hopeful – like his words could reach across nearly two decades, and all the space and absolute silence between them.

The room filled with the familiar ticks and crackles and hums of calculating modules warming up – the smell of dust and disrepair burning away, an orderly light pattern waving across the hundreds of exposed tubes. And then another, and another… I counted twelve, by the time it was done. The grinding of a teleprinter that hadn’t been touched in ages, a few beeps from a speaker at the console…

A self-test sequence.

The teleprinter clattered away for a few seconds, something I couldn’t see from where I was standing. Altair frowned and flipped a couple of switches; maybe the beeps were a bad sign. But a sign of _what?_

“I was worried about that. It doesn’t realize which console woke it up… which means that we’re on our own. The database is almost completely degraded.” Altair shook his head a little. “I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up about it.”

“Can we fix it?”

“I wish we could – but it took us years to build up that database, the language processing skills. It’s just too complex. Almost our most complex project, actually – but even without the database, I think we can feed false input back to the surveillance system.”

“…Almost. What’s more complex than… this?”

“Some things make even _electronic brains_ look simple in comparison – even when it’s a team effort.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that at first. But then I realized something very important, something I’d missed: this wasn’t his notebook.

It was an easy mistake, at first glance; the layout was what I’d been expecting, and it was just as detailed. But it didn’t have the same _quickness_ about it. It isn’t that he rushes through things, or that his work is messy, because that couldn’t be farther from the truth, really. But there’s always a few feathered edges – or maybe an uneven circle once in a while, because when Doc isn’t too prideful to use a compass, he uses it _one-handed._

There was none of that here – but nothing made it clearer than the careful handwriting in the front cover.

_Dr. Corius Jensen; Electronic Brain Project; Notebook #1._


	4. Proton.

"This _has_ to be a dream."

My words bounced off the shining walls of the buildings around the station's courtyard and disappeared into the early morning mist. They didn't echo back, caught up in the trees and the stiff grass that poked up between the stones under my feet. But they should have. Three of these buildings were gone. The trees were too. And no grass grew here -- not anymore.

And someone in particular _definitely_ didn't belong here.

"You don't believe me." Chaotica shook his head in exasperation. _"Shocking._ But why not?"

_Because there's no way in hell I just actually had a conversation with a Stygian without dying._

_Because I think the pirates stuck me with something before I woke up here._

_Because we're standing in the middle of Station Zero, and I know better than to think I'll ever see it like this again._

"Because you're _dead."_

"So I've heard. It's... inconvenient -- but ultimately not important." He looked over the courtyard, toward the domed tower farthest away from us -- in fifteen years, I'd never had a reason to go there. "Is this how you remember it?"

"Pretty much." I was doing my best to sound detached about it -- but I was failing miserably, and we both knew it. "Actually, I think the only thing that's out of place is _you."_

"And yourself, Captain. You know as well as I do that this place no longer exists -- and that it hasn't for the better part of a decade. And as I said... this isn't a dream, no matter how much you'd like it to be."

As much as I hated to admit it, he had a point -- because as I looked around the Station, I could read the date on the cornerstone, the date they'd officially named the place and designated it a Planetary Defense Force research outpost. And I'd had enough semi-lucid dreams to know that I shouldn't have been able to do that; it should have been random words, if anything at all...

"Alright, I'll play along. Let's say it isn't -- then what is it?"

"The pirates took you by surprise, then. Victoria may not be very _clever,_ but she's good at that, if you aren't careful. It makes her dangerous. More dangerous than you, even."

"Hey, don't ignore the question -- and anyway, all I was trying to do was to..."

"Oh, I know. You were trying to help -- but that didn't make you any less of a threat." That, with a wry smile. "But what matters right now is whether you remember what they did to you before you woke up here."

"I think it _is_ pretty important, actually --" I managed to stop myself; I mean, what good was it gonna do to argue with a ghost? But as I reached back in my mind, I couldn't pull anything concrete from my memory. Sure, there were the pirates, and I was somewhere in the Fortress of Doom... "I don't know. Something sharp. I don't remember, it's all... fuzzy."

"Convenient, isn't it? Almost as though they planned on that. _Concentrate,_ Proton."

"Shut up, I'm _trying."_ I focused as hard as I could on everything that had happened over the last few days, searching for _anything_ clear... but it all came up out of order, blurred together. "We went back to the apartment, and... then there was the lizard. And they took Buster, but they took something else too --"

"Hm. Say what you will about me, but at least _I_ never set an angry giant lizard after you."

"Didn't you? Sounds like something you'd do... Wait, I didn't say it was an angry giant lizard."

"Wasn't it?"

"Well, _yeah,_ but..."

"Call it a lucky guess." He shrugged. "We aren't going to learn anything new about this place just standing here. Let's have a look around."

"So you don't know what it is, either, great," I muttered. "For the record, you're literally the last person I want to walk around this place with, and this is absolutely ridiculous."

"The feeling's mutual."

We walked in silence for a while, toward the far end of the station. Everything about the covered corridor was achingly familiar -- the birds outside, coffee brewing somewhere nearby. A metallic tinge hung in the air -- and then I felt a low rumble in the distance.

A reminder -- or maybe, a warning.

I wondered just what had arrived here, on that lightning bolt, and what might be waiting on the next one.

"Dead in what sense, exactly?" Chaotica asked then. "Just out of curiosity."

"As in, I figured I wasn't gonna have to deal with you anymore." I met his gaze for just a second -- he was giving me _that_ look, the _"that would be funny if it wasn't at my expense"_ look, and I hated how familiar it felt. "And frankly? I couldn't be happier about it."

"I can tell when you're lying to me, you know. It's one of the only times you ever look me in the eye."

"Yeah? What are the others?"

"When you're desperate. When you're afraid." We were in front of the library dome now -- the huge stained-glass doors, four inches thick, beautiful and unyielding. "When you're trying to reach something that just isn't there anymore."

I didn't have anything to say to that, or at least nothing productive. I reached for the door and heard the locks disengage. "Well, at least it remembers me -- what do you think we're gonna find in here, anyway?"

But when I looked over my shoulder, Chaotica was gone.

_Figures. God, I hate this dream already._

I pushed open the door with a lot more effort than I remembered; the lights were all a little off, too. Too dim, or maybe just quite a bit warmer than they'd been before...

There was the coffee, in a glass carafe I didn't remember, a geometric pattern etched into it. Lots of triangles, kind of like the pattern on the library doors. A lab notebook sat next to that, wrapped in a leather cover like the one on my desk back home -- not mine, and not Altair's, dyed a serious shade of burgundy.

The unmistakable sound of the door to the hallway, unlocked at the moment, then a low, calm voice, speaking in a language I didn't know. It was the rhythm of a bedtime story -- slow and even, elongated syllables, dramatic pauses -- and as I stopped trying to process the words, I found that I could finally understand them.

_"Both of them looked to the horizon, watching the suns rise for a little while. 'You could come with me,' the wanderer said -- but the temple guardian only shook her head. He knew she was right; her adventure was here. So he smiled and kissed her goodbye for now -- he'd see her again, after all. And then the wanderer and the star-child set off together into the unknown, to wherever their next adventure would take them."_

_"Where did they go?"_

Quiet laughter, then. _"That's a story for another time, I think."_

_"In the morning?"_

_"We'll see. Sleep well, little one."_

Another door closed, one of the workshops, and from there came the storyteller. He looked to be about my age, maybe a little older, but something in me knew that it was misleading... at the _very_ least. There was just something about the way he looked at me then, or maybe the way he carried himself, something beyond confidence or composure. It was this sort of practiced _neatness_ \-- not-quite-curly hair, carefully arranged; a sweater the color of the notebook on the desk; a warm complexion and warmer smile, but there was an expectation in it, too.

"i'm glad you made it," he said quietly. "I don't suppose he told you what this place is."

"Said he didn't know."

"You know as well as I do that every other word out of that man's mouth is a half-truth at best. He thinks he can get you out of here without telling you the truth, arrogant bastard that he is." An exasperated sigh at that -- one that reminded me of interference in an electron storm. "Sit down, Captain; I suspect you're going to be here a while."

"So where are we, then?" I asked carefully. "And who are you?"

"Not quite a dream, if that's what you've been thinking. It's a little bigger than that. A space between them."

_The space between dreams._

The calmness about him suddenly made a lot more sense -- part of me wanted to be afraid, but the rest of me knew better than to try.

"And as for me... I'm the keeper of this place, I suppose." He thought about that for a little while -- longer than necessary, I thought. Like he wanted me to see that it was a complex enough answer to be worth deliberation. Proving a point. "...You can call me Corius."


End file.
